The Secret to Getting It All Done: How Career Moms Can Achieve More by Doing Less

I used to cry my eyes out, twisted up in a ball of overwhelm and frustration, because I just couldn’t figure out “how to get it all done!” I honestly thought the women building successful careers AND loving, joyful families had figured out how to do MORE things in the day than I could do. There were so many tears shed because no matter how hard I worked, no matter how efficient I got, I couldn’t ever knock down the amount of work—both inside and outside my home—there was still to be done.

Maybe you can relate to that empty, disappointing feeling? I used to believe that there was a way to get everything done that I just couldn’t figure out, and it felt like a cruel joke that I wasn’t allowed to have the special knowledge. Every day there was a new reminder of how many places I was failing…I thought.

I wish more than anything that more of those successful, powerful career moms that I was aspiring to be like were talking about the real “secret” to doing it all: HAVE OTHER PEOPLE DO IT FOR YOU! Get leverage!

I’m not kidding…you guys…that’s the “secret.” Ask or hire someone else to do the things you don’t have time or don’t want to do. Period.

I know this sounds simple, but the moment you start practically applying that idea to your life, your happiness will increase instantly. It's not rocket science -- making more time to rest + doing fewer things you dislike doing = increased satisfaction. And yet, this secret eluded me for too long.

Once you embrace that the real solution, the real secret of the super powerful and successful women you see around you, is getting things done though leverage, it stops feeling so damn impossible! It stops being a question of why or how you’re failing, and starts being a simple matter of scheduling or delegating. It lets you stop making the amount of work still to be done mean that you’re a freaking failure!

Today looks a lot different than when my journey began, and now we’re able to hire a lot of help. But in the beginning, applying this idea was all about learning to accept the help that was offered (friends, family, etc), and asking my husband to share the responsibility for tasks that were overwhelming me. It was about deciding what I didn't like doing, and giving myself permission NOT to do that, anymore. Giving yourself permission is the hard part. After that, it starts becoming so much more fun.

At this point, I don’t clean my own house, my husband and I aren’t the only ones “raising our kids,” and I don’t go to the grocery store. One time, I hired someone to go to a meal prep class for me to prep the meals, and then had a freezer full of prepackaged crock pot/instant pot meals that lasted a couple months. Do what you got to do, and scratch where it itches.

Efficiency DOES matter, systems DO matter, and you CAN learn to organize your time in a way that allows you to get the most POSSIBLE done. BUT – and this is a huge BUT – it is not POSSIBLE to build a passionate career and a thriving family, at the same time, all by yourself. So stop killing yourself trying to do it!

The secret is: you're not failing to do enough, but rather, you’re doing way too damn much!